Senior Ignition Developer

Location: San Antonio, Texas
Work Schedule: Hybrid — two days per week onsite
Employment Type: Full-Time, Direct Hire
Travel: Approximately once per month to field assets in South Texas, typically for one to two days
Compensation: Competitive base salary plus a 10%–15% annual performance-based bonus
Relocation: Candidates must currently live in the San Antonio area or be willing to relocate

Position Overview

We are seeking a highly experienced Senior Ignition Developer to lead the technical development, implementation, and long-term support of an enterprise Ignition SCADA platform for an established energy operator.

The organization is undertaking a major, approximately 10-month migration from Cygnet SCADA to Inductive Automation Ignition. During the migration, this individual will serve as the internal technical lead and work closely with a third-party system integrator to guide architecture, development standards, testing, and deployment.

Following implementation, this position will become the organization’s primary in-house Ignition resource, with full responsibility for ongoing application development, platform administration, troubleshooting, enhancements, and production support.

This is a hands-on development position requiring strong Ignition expertise, Python scripting capabilities, and experience building scalable, reusable SCADA applications. The ideal candidate is comfortable working independently and taking long-term ownership of a business-critical industrial platform.

Key Responsibilities

Ignition Development and Architecture

• Design, develop, configure, test, and support applications using Inductive Automation Ignition.
• Build responsive operator interfaces and dashboards using Ignition Perspective and/or Vision.
• Develop scalable tag structures, intelligent UDTs, reusable templates, and standardized data models.
• Create data-driven screens and dashboards using reusable components and structured attributes.
• Develop Python scripts to automate processes, extend platform functionality, manipulate data, and support application workflows.
• Configure and support alarming, historical data, trending, reporting, and visualization capabilities.
• Apply clean-code principles, documentation standards, version control practices, and structured testing throughout the development lifecycle.
• Establish development standards and best practices that support the long-term scalability and maintainability of the platform.

SCADA Migration and Integrator Oversight

• Serve as the internal technical lead during the migration from Cygnet to Ignition.
• Coordinate with and provide technical oversight to the third-party system integrator responsible for implementation.
• Review proposed system architecture, database structures, application designs, scripts, tag models, UDTs, and integration methods.
• Ensure the integrator’s work aligns with internal operational requirements and established Ignition development standards.
• Participate in design reviews, testing, validation, cutover planning, deployment, and post-implementation support.
• Identify technical risks, development concerns, and project dependencies, and communicate them proactively to internal teams and project stakeholders.
• Develop sufficient internal knowledge and documentation to assume full ownership of the platform following project completion.

Platform Administration and Support

• Maintain the Ignition SCADA environment to support availability, security, reliability, and performance.
• Manage Ignition gateways, project structures, security roles, authentication, and user access.
• Plan and execute platform upgrades, patching, backups, restoration procedures, and disaster-recovery activities.
• Participate in redundancy and failover testing.
• Troubleshoot application, gateway, tag, database, communication, and performance-related issues.
• Provide ongoing technical support for production systems, operational users, dashboards, and field-connected assets.
• Evaluate and implement platform improvements, application enhancements, and automation opportunities.
• Monitor system health and address issues that could affect data availability or operational visibility.

Industrial Communications and Integration

• Configure, test, and troubleshoot industrial communication protocols and interfaces, including:
  • OPC and OPC UA
  • MQTT
  • Modbus
  • Ethernet-based industrial communications
• Support communication between Ignition, field devices, PLCs, RTUs, databases, historians, and other operational systems.
• Collaborate with operations, automation, engineering, IT, and field personnel to resolve data and communication issues.
• Travel periodically to South Texas field assets to support testing, commissioning, troubleshooting, and system validation.

Documentation and Continuous Improvement

• Create and maintain technical documentation covering architecture, application standards, tag structures, UDTs, scripts, gateway configurations, integrations, support procedures, and disaster recovery.
• Develop repeatable procedures for application deployment, testing, troubleshooting, and production support.
• Identify opportunities to use Ignition scripting, automation, visualization, and data capabilities to improve business and operational processes.
• Recommend software enhancements, architectural changes, and configuration improvements that increase system reliability, usability, and performance.

Required Qualifications

• At least five years of related SCADA development, application engineering, or industrial automation experience.
• Strong hands-on development experience with Inductive Automation Ignition.
• Demonstrated experience developing Ignition applications rather than solely administering or supporting the platform.
• Experience with Ignition 8.0 or newer.
• Strong Python or Jython scripting experience within an Ignition environment.
• Experience with Ignition Perspective and/or Vision.
• Strong understanding of Ignition project structures, tag architecture, UDTs, templates, and reusable components.
• Experience developing data-driven SCADA screens and operational dashboards.
• Experience configuring alarming, historical data, trending, and reporting.
• Experience supporting Ignition gateways, security roles, user access, backups, upgrades, and production environments.
• Working knowledge of OPC, MQTT, Modbus, and industrial Ethernet communications.
• Solid understanding of networking fundamentals, system security, databases, and industrial communication architecture.
• Strong troubleshooting skills across applications, data, communications, and system performance.
• Ability to independently own a production Ignition platform and serve as the organization’s primary subject-matter expert.
• Ability to communicate technical issues, risks, and recommendations clearly to technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
• Associate degree from a college or technical school, equivalent technical training, or a comparable combination of education and relevant experience.
• Must currently reside in the San Antonio area or be willing to relocate.
• Ability to work onsite in San Antonio two days per week.
• Ability to travel to field assets in South Texas approximately once per month for one to two days.

Preferred Qualifications

• Ignition 8.0 or newer certification.
• Experience leading or supporting a large-scale SCADA migration to Ignition.
• Previous experience working with Cygnet SCADA.
• Experience reviewing or overseeing work performed by an Ignition system integrator.
• Experience within upstream or midstream oil and gas operations.
• Experience supporting geographically distributed field assets, including production facilities, pipelines, well sites, or related infrastructure.
• Familiarity with redundant Ignition architectures, failover testing, disaster recovery, and high-availability production environments.
• Experience integrating Ignition with SQL databases, historians, enterprise applications, and external reporting systems.

Ideal Candidate Profile

The strongest candidate will be a hands-on Ignition developer who can lead the technical side of a major migration while preparing to assume complete ownership of the platform. This individual should be comfortable reviewing an integrator’s work, challenging architectural decisions when necessary, writing production-level code, supporting operational users, and independently managing a critical SCADA application after deployment.